The first gig
by Rayzworld
Summary: Based on the events that ACTUALLY happened to my band. I wonder how the blues brothers showband found their first gig...
1. Chapter 1

The walk to the Penguin's office was always petrifying. Even at 15, Jake ,along with his brother Elwood, feared what was at the other end. Ever since they pretty much started staying at the orphanage, they had been going up to the penguin to be met by a ruler against their hands. Damn.

This time though, they hadn't tried to set fire to the Sunday school, sneak out of lessons to the arcade or just generally get on her nerves. They reached the door and Elwood raised a fist to knock

"WHO IS IT?" Sister Mary bellowed

"UH... Jake and Elwood"

The door swung open revealing the penguin at her desk

"I still don't know how she does that" Jake muttered to his brother

"Now boys... I trust you are behaving?" The penguin

"Listen, Sister, we didn't actually do it this time... honest" Elwood cried

"Elwood, please. I actually have something to ask of you boys. The church is having a fundraiser event for Christmas this year, and since Curtis has been telling all of the nuns about your bands incredible progress, we thought it would be fantastic if we held a concert for charity."

"A gig, just for our band! That would be awesome" Jake smiled

"Well, the choir will also do a performance and some local stores will be putting on a fashion show in the evening, but yes, your band has a performance"

"AWESOME"

"You have 2 weeks to get a few songs ready"

"No prob, sis, man elwood this is gonna rock" Elwood and jake ran towards the door

"Oh and Jake..."

"Yeah"

"Nothing explicit should arise in these songs i hope..." The sister glanced a worried look towards jake

"Dont worry, we got it all covered" jake smiled as he left the room


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, at the St. Peters catholic school, Jake and Elwood met up with the rest of the band

"Hey guys!" Jake was bursting with excitement, he couldn't wait to tell the others and get practising for the day, even if it was for church.

"Guess what!"

"What?" Matt 'guitar' Murphy asked

"We got us a gig!"

The rest of the band became suddenly overwhelmed with the idea as quickly as jake did

"Wait, what is this gig Jake?" Alan, the trumpet player, said. The band always called him Mr fabulous; after all, when the band first started in 7th grade, he was technically the only one who could play his instrument well enough to be considered worthy of an epic nickname.

"Well, it's kinda for the penguin... but hey! We still getta play what we want!"

"Yeah, how long we got?" matt smiled

"Uh, 2 weeks..."

"WHAT?" the band shot up out of their seats

"Jake that's nothing!" Willie groaned

"Hey, we got a couple of suitable songs don' we?" Elwood finally spoke up

"Uh, I guess, we could play sweet home Chicago and some Sam and Dave." Tom Malone said

"Hey Elwood, weren't Curtis teachin' you rubber biscuit?" Jake looked at his brother hoping for a good response

"Yeah, ill try and get it down, and wait, I think we need 2 more songs for our list..."

"John the revelator?" matt suggested

"What the hells that?" Jake frowned

"The ol' man in Sunday school used to sing it, don't you remember?" he said and picked up his guitar, strumming the first few chords

"Oh yeah... ok I guess we could do that to please the crowd. And 'I don't know' "

"Jake you can't sing I don't know" Alan said

"Why no..."

"Just, no." Alan interrupted

"Well we need something. Come on, Curtis is letting us use the basement to practice. After school, we'll meet up at the orphanage and start ok?"

The bell went, and the plan to play awesome blues was crafted. For now, at least.


	3. Chapter 3

After a dull day at school, the band met up at the orphanage and set up all the equipment in the basement, where Curtis, the man who mentored Jake and Elwood on the art of blues music, lived. He was always there when the band needed a hand with the songs, and today was no exception...

"Ok then boys, lets see what you got" Curtis sat back on his chair with a whisky shot

"Ok. 1, 2, 1 2 3 4"

And the intro of 'sweet home Chicago' blared out of the amp... very badly. Along with Willie playing a little bit too fast for the rest of the band, and Donald duck Dunn looking around wondering where the hell they were at.

"GUYS!" Curtis frowned

"It's gonna take time... but we'll get there." Curtis sighed and arched an eyebrow. He set to work , and began to play about with the settings on the guitars and bass.

"There, son, its blues, we aint lookin to try and deafen people"

Curtis then turned to the drums

"Willie, you gotta relax, keep it at a nice pace for the boys, alright. Gentle fills when needed. Oh, try the hi hat closed for keepin the beat"

Curtis worked his way through the brass, Murph on his piano, teaching him some slides, and finally onto the blues brothers themselves. He was tweaking everything ever so slightly, but the changes became noticeable when he counted them in again

_Come on, baby don't you want to go  
>Come on, baby don't you want to go<br>To the same old place, sweet home Chicago_

_Now, one and one is two, two and two is four  
>I'm heavy loaded baby, I'm booked, I gotta go<br>Cryin' baby, honey, don't you want to go  
>Back to the same old place, my sweet home Chicago<em>

'This is great!' Elwood thought as he glanced around the room at his friends. He even spotted a Cheshire cat smile spread across Curtis' face.

_Come on, baby don't you want to go  
>Com on, baby don't you want to go<br>To the same old place, sweet home Chicago_

_Now two and two is four, six and two is eight  
>Come on baby, don't you make me late<br>I'm cryin' hey, baby, don't you want to go  
>To the same old place, sweet home Chicago<em>

_Come on, baby don't you want to go  
>Com on, baby don't you want to go<br>To the same old place, sweet home Chicago_

_Two and two is four, four and two is six,  
>keep stayin out late at night you gonna get your business fixed.<em>

_Six and two is eight, eight and two is ten  
>She double crossed you one time<br>and she gonna do it again._

_I'm goin to Chicago, two thousand miles away,  
>Boy won't you tell me that you'll be my friend someday.<em>

"Guys… were gonna get there"


	4. Chapter 4

The next two weeks flew by for the band, with practices happening as often as possible. They had everything ready, the equipment, the people, the songs… except for one.

"Jake I'm serious, you cant play that shit in a church!" Alan moaned

"And you cant swear in a holy place, but you just did"

"The orphanage is hardly holy"

"What you sayin'?" Jake frowned. As much as he hated to admit it, he couldn't play ' I don't know' in front of 100 catholics... but he could at least try.

"Jake, seriously, think about it, if we play it, we'll probably never get a gig again"

"Fine… can I at least change the words"

"To what?" Alan was growing impatient. The guys hadn't turned up to the final band practice before the gig and jake was thoroughly annoying him over a stupid song

"Trust me, Mr fabulous, you just play, I'll deal with it." Alan seemed very unconvinced as he picked up this trumpet and walked away to tune.

After an hour of waiting, the rest of the band, along with Elwood, finally entered the basement

"Where the hell you guys been?" Jake said furiously

"Getting root beer" Donald pointed a box of bottles in elwoods hands

"Oh… you could've at least got some real beer if youre out that long!" Jake moaned as he grabbed a bottle from the box.

The band set up and practiced like mad. Every note was played with such presicion and passion, since everything counts in a blues band.

Everything was going well, until that voice echoed through the basement

"BOYS!" Jake and Elwood shot their eyes to the nun standing in the doorway

"Aren't you coming to sound check?" She smiled

The boys looked at each other, gathered their stuff and ran upstairs and out of the orphanage to curtis' car.

"Again… why does she do that?" Jake said angrily

"What?" Curtis asked whilst driving the blues brothers to the church hall

"The, penguin, she always screams at us and is then suddenly nice, or manages to open doors and close them without touching them!"

"Now, boys, don't call sister mary that,besides, all nuns have godly she likes to scare you" Curtis chuckled.

They reached the hall and unloaded the car, and saw to their delight a bunch of old men and women to entering the room blues brothers band ran inside and saw a small stage shaped like a catwalk with women over 65 wearing clothes that should never have seen light of day

"Uh, Curtis" Elwood sighed "You sure this is the place?"

"Definitely" Curtis had already began to move amps towards the stage

"Jake, what the fuck have you got us into!" alan whispered

"Doris look! Is that jake?" an old woman in a light green suede suit smiled

"Oh yes! I think it is" Doris, the woman on stage in a tight floral dress leapt off tstage, with not a lot of grace and ran over to the boys

"Oh how good to see you kids!" she grbbed elwood and jake into a hug, with the othere watching and holding back explosions of laughter

"Here, here everyone, the band has arrived!" Doris announced. Mutters between the old people about the band, and asking what she had just said filled the crowds of pensioners came towards the group of 15 year old boys, fear filling more fear than when the penguin storms into the room.

"So, what will you be playing for us?" One person asked

"Yes, will we hear, run rabbit run?"

"Oh that was always a classic"

More and more questions were thrown at them, with even more comments like,'what did you say' blaring in the bands ears

"BLUES!" Matt guitar Murphy yelled followed by a very awkward silence.

"Uh… we will be playing blues…"

Chapter 5


	5. Chapter 5

Thankfully, the few words Matt said managed to fend off the old people. The swarm backed off, some with disappointment spread across their face because they weren't playing a genre they could enjoy. But it didn't matter. All that did was finishing this sound check so that they could sound awesome tomorrow night.

The set up of the equipment was quick and so was the run through, not just because they were good at setting up, it was their first time really, but so that Doris wouldn't come out of the dressing room to bore the band with her stories, or worse…

Anyway, the band place the equipment at the sides, or at the back of the stage, so the pensioners could still walk around showing off their tweed jackets and woolen hats to the general public. The gig wasn't for hours yet they were all excited, nervous and totally ready to perform. So, to get the boys away from the models and their constant moaning, Curtis finally approached the band

"Boys, who wants ice cream?"

The band jumped out of the plastic seats and ran towards the ice cream parlor down the road. Only to come back half an hour later to the shock they had never expected

"Guys look!" Matt pointed at the huge crowds of people sitting around the stage

"Oh my god, there's loads of them!" Elwood cried

"Now Elwood, don't panic, you'll all be great!" Curtis smiled

"C-Curtis" Alan stuttered "What have they done!"

The band turned to what Alan was glaring in anger at. The stage. Where's the amps? The drum kit? The microphones?

"Ah, boys!" Doris called from behind them

"Yes, we had to move the drums you see, they were in the way of the lift for ol' greg. And we need to use the microphones and amplifiers is that ok?"

"No! It's not ok! Why didn't you bring your own, we had it all ready you stupid old…" Alan was quickly gagged by Curtis huge hand

"No problem Doris, but we should have really been consulted before you did so, y'know?" Curtis forced a fake smile

"Oh, well, the show's starting now anyway, would you boys like some cranberry juice?"

"Don't change the subject damn it!" Jake screamed

"Dude, why didn't you use the microphone at the side of the stage we set out for you?"

Doris' usually chirpy expression soon turned sour and her once soft eyes turned sharp

"Listen, we didn't have to have some rude brats like you come and ruin the show, so don't even try anything. We are older and superior, not you, now get backstage you ignorant prats!"

"Ruin the show? I think it will be incredible if your models don't fall asleep as they're walking up the stairs to the stage" Elwood mumbled, as Curtis escorted the band away from the old woman and into the room next to the stage.

"Don't worry boys, she didn't mean it, she's just a little … uh, agitated, alright?" Curtis sighed as the lights grew dim and the show began…


End file.
